If your laptop/pc/mac/phone/whatever runs a 64 bit Processor (that is x86_64 for the Intel people) then you owe the thanks to... AMD. AMD got it right, and Intel even went so far as to LICENCE (and still do) AMD's works and ideas. (The Itanium was ... not so successful)
And people wonder why I get AMD instead of Intel.
Happy 10th anniversary to 64 bit computing!
Here is the article on how it happened, more or less 
http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/feature/2262881/amd-brought-64bit-to-x86-10-years-ago-today